BRITAIN’S MONEY

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 23 August 1924, Page 7

BRITAIN’S MONEY

ECONOMIC EXPERT’S VIEW. 'POO MUCH SENT ABROAD. v : LONDON, Aug. 5. Mr>John Maynard Keynes, the noted writer on economies, who was the principal representative of the Treasury ai the Paris Peace. Conference and deputy for the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the Supreme Economic Council in 1919, tolj the members of a Liberal Summer School meeting at Oxford that Britain was investing too much money abroad, especially in the Dominions and Colonies. To these, he said, the total loans, including those to _ India, amounted to £900,000,000, while the amount was being increased to £70,000,000 a year. _ He contended that the overseas portions of the Empire get cheap money while first-class Home industries are starved. He rejected the familiar contention that investments abroad were justified by the- stimulus given to the British export trade

“I do not see any special virtue,” he continued, “in exports which are not required to nay for imports. The notion that the great thine; is to get goods out of the country is not sensible. Investment abroad does not stimulate employment one whit more than investment at home. Last year we invested abroad about two-thirds of the amount which passed through the investment markets, but most of this could have been usefully employed at home, and it must be so employed in future if our national equipment is to grow as fast as our population.”